Squidward Johannsen Tentacles is a fictional main character who appears in the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. He is voiced by Rodger Bumpass and first appeared on television in the episode "Help Wanted" on May 1, 1999. Squidward was created and designed by cartoonist Stephen Hillenburg while he was studying marine biology at the California Institute of Arts. He is a six-legged blue-green octopus[1] who lives in a large Easter Island head moai between SpongeBob's pineapple-house and the rock under which Patrick resides. He works as the cashier at the Krusty Krab restaurant alongside SpongeBob.

Squidward is known in the series for his negative and unenthused personality; he has a dry wit, and is constantly sarcastic. While his neighbors SpongeBob and Patrick are generally cheerful, Squidward is very irritable and unenthusiastic. SpongeBob and Patrick consider Squidward to be their best friend, though he despises the duo. While his opinion of them is obvious, they either do not care or are oblivious, as they treat him as "one of the guys". Their antics and games annoy Squidward, but he will grudgingly participate if egged on or challenged, and occasionally has a change of heart and feel compassion for them if they are mistreated or hurt by another.

Squidward works as the cashier at the Krusty Krab restaurant, alongside SpongeBob, who is the fry cook. He despises his job due to unintelligent customers, his skinflint boss, Mr. Krabs, and SpongeBob's immense enthusiasm in working as a fry cook. He is an aspiring artist and musician, though most of his art is created in tribute to himself and his music, and his clarinet playing is considered mediocre. He is not very popular in Bikini Bottom due to his supercilious attitude toward those he feels are "uncultured". Squidward's rival is Squilliam Fancyson, from high school band class, who constantly taunts Squidward for being poor and unsuccessful, in contrast with himself.

Contents

History

In "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V," it is revealed that Squidward used to have a girlfriend when he remembered the good times he had at make-out reef.

Biography and personality

Squidward playing the clarinet.

Squidward Tentacles' character is a bundle of adult failings and successes. He is annoyingly pretentious in his pursuit of the arts, unable to spot raw talent and creativity, even belittling it. He lauds "cultivated taste" and accepted standards. In the episode "Artist Unknown", he insists that his pupil SpongeBob "show his method", even when it's painfully clear that SpongeBob is creating works of artistic genius. In "Bubblestand", he belittles SpongeBob's brilliant bubble-blowing. Such episodes can be taken as a punch by the cartoonists at their pretentious but failed art-school classmates who, instead of being recognized masters, must now work at low, demeaning jobs. In Best Day Ever he had a concert where he played beautifully and received thunderous applause from the audience. Spongebob was on the VIP list for it.

All his artwork, from sculptures to paintings, depicts himself in a way, even over-painting done works with his own face.

He has tried several things to reach the fame he desires: hosting a talent show, starting his own astrology spin-off, forming a band, and so on, yet he can't seem to get much of a following. Mr. Krabs and Patrick also seem to like him, though it may be argued that Mr. Krabs only likes Squidward because of his allegiance with the Krusty Krab. Squidward considers himself the greatest and most unrecognized clarinet player of all time, though most undersea life that hear him play will argue that he is a mediocre clarinet player, and his clarinet playing often gets him into trouble (or injured in a comic and brutal fashion, such as Spongebob launching an airborne marshmallow into his throat in an attempt to get him to stop playing).

Squidward's character is a complex bundle of adult failings and successes, and, like the show, presents a rich social commentary. While his failings are of his own making, he is also a victim of modern society. He is annoyingly pretentious in his pursuit of the arts, unable to spot raw talent and creativity, even belittling it. He lauds "cultivated taste" and accepted standards. In the episode "Artist Unknown", he insists that his pupil SpongeBob "show his method", even when it's painfully clear that SpongeBob is creating works of artistic genius. In "Bubblestand", he belittles SpongeBob's brilliant bubble-blowing. Such episodes can be taken as a punch by the cartoonists at their pretentious but failed art-school classmates who, instead of being recognized masters, must now work at low, demeaning jobs.

In certain ways, Squidward's life is portrayed as a failure. In "One Krab's Trash", he visits a cemetery to lay flowers at a headstone that reads, "Here Lies Squidward's Hopes and Dreams." Yet he has not sunk into despondency: he is tireless in his pursuit of music, his painting, his sculpture, oblivious to his lack of talent. This is because his seventh great-grandfather Squidly could not play the clarinet right, and cursed Squidward ten-fold, as seen in "Dunces and Dragons". It is amusing to note that Squidward once said that anyone can be a bigshot in a hick-town like Bikini Bottom, but he can never make a name for himself. It is sort of ironic how the person in the town who probably tries most to make a name for himself can't, even though it doesn't seem too hard.

Outwardly, he in fact shows signs of modest success: he lives in a nice, well-tended house, with no signs of slothfulness, and finds plenty of time to lead an active, involved life. Not conscious of his failings, he acknowledges them subconsciously by his outsized sarcasm. All of his most famous and most quotable lines are sarcastic. He is well-educated, knows his history, and has a strong anti-capitalist bent. At work, he is not only careless, sloppy and lazy, but even occasionally engages in Marxist, labor-party sloganeering. In the episode "Squid on Strike", he organizes a worker's strike at the Krusty Krab, replete with talk of "the proletariat", working-class oppression, protest techniques and organization. He even incites labor unrest, resulting in the destruction of the Krusty Krab.

In the end, Squidward finds a way of redeeming himself. He has various endearing traits, and, despite himself, often manages to keep an open mind. In the episode "Squidville", he moves to a town filled with his own peers, other octopuses who share his tastes and outlook on life. Here, he is forced to face how boring and oppressive his desired lifestyle really is, and he is able to ultimately break free of its bonds with a bit of inspired silliness.

An avid patron of the arts, Squidward has a strong affection for interpretive dance, sculpture, painting, and playing the clarinet, but seems to have almost no talent for any of them whatsoever, although he does play the clarinet beautifully at the end of the Christmas special, and at the end of the Bubblestand episode. He has often tried to impress the public with his artistic exhibitions, but is always either unrecognized, mocked by his audience, or upstaged by SpongeBob. Squidward always wants to be the center of attention but rarely ever is. Strangely, in Best Day Ever he had a concert where he played beautifully and received thunderous applause from the audience. Spongebob was on the VIP list for it.

All his artwork, from sculptures to paintings, depicts himself in a way, even over-painting done works with his own face. He has tried several things to reach the fame he desires: hosting a talent show, starting his own astrology spin-off, forming a band, and so on, yet he can't seem to get much of a following. Mr. Krabs and Patrick also seem to like him, though it may be argued that Mr. Krabs only likes Squidward because of his allegiance with the Krusty Krab. Squidward considers himself the greatest and most unrecognized clarinet player of all time, though most undersea life that hear him play will argue that he is a mediocre clarinet player, and his clarinet playing often gets him into trouble (or injured in a comic and brutal fashion, such as Spongebob launching an airborne marshmallow into his throat in an attempt to get him to stop playing). SpongeBob has told Squidward he doesn't play the clarinet well. It is amusing to note that Squidward once said that anyone can be a bigshot in a hick-town like Bikini Bottom, but he can never make a name for himself.

One of Squidward's greatest dreams and desires is to either have hair or to buy a wig. He seems to think he would look good with hair. Aside from his musical "talents", he enjoys painting several pictures of himself and hanging them up around his house. There are new paintings in his house in almost every episode, constantly changing and almost never the same.

Squidward's House.

Squidward lives in a house resembling an Easter Islandmoai, placed between SpongeBob and Patrick's houses at 122 Conch Street. It has been personified several times, such as in the episode The Secret Box, where it seems to be peeking at SpongeBob and Patrick's talk. Despite Squidward's wish for peace and quiet, his two neighbors, SpongeBob and Patrick, make it nearly impossible, due to their high level of childish immaturity and silliness. If Squidward had the choice, he would move. He did in "Squidville", but ultimately decided that he had moved somewhere even worse. Similarly in "Opposite Day", Squidward tried to move but SpongeBob had scared away the Real Estate agent and Squidward had to stay. Squidward does not live alone; Snellie, his snail from The Great Snail Race, is in residence with him.

Relationships

SpongeBob and Patrick

Squidward finds SpongeBob and Patrick are complete annoyances. He tends to let everyone annoy him, especially those who want to be his friend, although at many times his impatience of the loud and overbearing SpongeBob is quite justified. Often, Squidward infers Spongebob's simple-minded comments to be challenges. Proceeding this, he often goes out of his way to prove Spongebob he win the "challenge", often taking the whole thing entirely too seriously.

In the episode Artist Unknown, Spongebob signs up for Squidward's art class and proves to be a better artist than Squidward. Eventually, Spongebob creates an amazing statue that is beyond Squidward's capabilities as an artist. However, Squidward degrades Spongebob's art and claims it is missing a very important element (a large nose similar to Squidward's). In the episode "Squid's Day Off", Squidward assigns SpongeBob to man the cash register when Mr. Krabs is at the hospital getting his arms reattached. Meanwhile, Squidward leaves the Krusty Krab for a day of relaxation, but he foolishly had SpongeBob convinced that he was doing "very important boss-like errands."

SpongeBob and Patrick always encourage Squidward to participate in their games, but this only annoys him. In particular, Patrick and SpongeBob often ask him to go jellyfishing with them. One time while he was trying to avoid Patrick and SpongeBob, he froze in the Krusty Krab's freezer and landed in the future, then went to the past. While in the past, he inadvertently invented jellyfishing. While seemingly the eternal pessimist, he occasionally tries to be like SpongeBob (often with hopes that doing so will stop SpongeBob from bugging him), but does not ever get the hang of it. In one episode, however he finds himself putting a piece of paper on his nose and dancing a jig in insanity. When SpongeBob isn't looking, Squidward will start to act more like SpongeBob from time to time, especially in the earlier episodes like "Bubblestand" and "The Paper". Squidward's voice reveals a lot about his personality and attitude, much like SpongeBob's voice. In one episode, "Selling Out", he is forced to keep a smile glued to his face by the manager of Krabby O' Mondays which creates an interesting effect, as Squidward hardly ever smiles while showing his teeth.

However, it is often alluded that Squidward actually likes SpongeBob deep down, and almost looks upon him as the son he never had. An example of this is in Squidville, where Squidward moves away from SpongeBob to an exclusive octopus retreat, but realised that he really missed SpongeBob. In one episode, he sees an ad on TV about a town called Tentacle Acres, also known as Squidville, where many octopuses live in Easter Island heads just like him. He decides to move there, and for a while life is spectacular, as he finds a large community of like-minded octopuses into which he fits perfectly. Eventually, though, he starts to miss SpongeBob's reef blower games and the city of Bikini Bottom. In Tentacle Acres, daily life is all one big routine that Squidward tires of after a week or so. He begins to wreak havoc throughout the overly structured civilization of Tentacle Acres with a reef blower. Angry citizens corner him in an alleyway and demand that he leave. He obeyed their wishes, except he did so by launching himself into the open water above him via reef blower, screaming, "Woohoo! FREEDOM!".

Squilliam Fancyson

Squilliam and Squidward.

Squidward's rival is Squilliam Fancyson, from high school band class, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Squidward, but wears a robe and has a unibrow. He is living Squidward's dream (with a private island, a private heliport, a private lake, a private boat, a private mansion and even a private hot-air balloon and succeeded in everything Squidward failed in. He is a wealthy six-legged squid (or octopus, like Squidward is said to be at the beginning of this article), usually with many admirers following his presence. He constantly shows up to make fun of Squidward, however Squidward makes a jerk out of Squilliam when his ragtag band plays for the Bubble Bowl and turns out to be much better than he ever expected. At this sight, Squilliam has a heart attack and is taken to the hospital to recover.

Squilliam unintentionally gets back at Squidward in the episode "Squilliam Returns" which he is featured, when Squid's plan to turn the Krusty Krab into a five star restaurant blows up in his face when SpongeBob (who, on Squidward's request, emptied his mind of everything "except fine dining and breathing") forgot his name and subsequently everything else, in addition to Mr. Krabs's "appetizer" coming to life.

Clari

Squidward's best friend (besides himself) is his clarinet, who he named Clari.[2]

Squidward is left-tentacled.

Squidward owns a 'boat-mobile' (car), which can be seen briefly in "Band Geeks", "Pizza Delivery", "Dying for Pie" and "Fools in April". However, they look different in each episode, indicating he might trade them in often. Bicycling is his preferred mode of transportation. In the Spongebob Squarepants Movie, Squidward is shown riding a recumbant, which is a reference to the preference to his voice-actor, Roger Bumpass.

Appearance

Squidward generally uses two of his tentacles as arms and groups the other four into two pairs of legs. He is marked by his large nose and bald head, and when he laughs, his nose appears to deflate and go back to normal frequently.

Squidward once had his own astrology spin-off series that is still rarely shown on Nicktoons TV. It was called "Astrology With Squidward".

In the episode "Squid's Day Off", Squidward mentions his blueish glow. This was an obvious in-joke, about Squidward's random color changes. In the very first episodes, Squidward actually does have a blueish glow, and almost looks blue in a few of them. In Season 4 episodes, he is completely green.

In "Dunces and Dragons" Sqidley said great great great grandson would be cursed at clarinet but in "Squidville" Squidward was playing the same way as the other three, signifying that squidlley isn't Squidward's ancestor.

In three episodes, Squidward takes SpongeBob's place as fry cook of the Krusty Krab. Squidward usually burns the food, such as in "Pickles" and "Hooky", but cooks them fine in the episode "Bubble Buddy". He also competively cooked with SpongeBob to win title of Employee of the Month due to the fact that SpongeBob is better at him at many things. In the end, both of them lose. "Employee of the Month"

Squidward hates jellyfishing. However, when he was trying to get Primitive SpongeBob and Primitive Patrick to stop zapping themselves in "SB-129", he inadvertently invented jellyfishing.

In the episode "Dying for Pie", SpongeBob made Squidward a sweater out of his own eyelashes. The hole for the head was measured with a watermelon, and Squidward still had a very difficult time getting it on.

Squidward is compared to the likes of your normal Anti Hero for he shows disdain for SpongeBob yet he tends to assist him in his perils and/or adventures.

Whenever Squidward laughs, his nose inflates and deflates.

Upon impact on the ground, Squidward's feet make a slight comedic splat sound.

Squidward is the last regular character to have called Spongebob by his full name. He finally cracked in the episode "Funny Pants".

Squidward possibly owns a 'boat-mobile' (car), which can be seen briefly in "Band Geeks", "Pizza Delivery", "Dying for Pie" and "Fools in April". However, they look different in each episode, indicating he might trade them in yearly. Squidward is only interested in his clarinet lessons and does not like to be bothered.

According to the episode "Dunces and Dragons", Squidward is cursed by his ancestor Squidley to not play well on the clarinet.

Squidward has fallen off of a cliff while riding his bicycle and exploded for no particular reason twice, once in "Jellyfishing" and once in "My Pretty Seahorse".

Squidward looks and sounds similar to actor Ned Sparks (minus the cigar). Ironically Sparks was once caricatured as an underwater creature in a 1939 cartoon by Tex Avery.

When people imitate Squidward, they hold their nose.

He finally cracked in the episode Funny Pants.

Squidward is the only person (apart from Larry, but Gary in a dream sequence and a letter) to have called SpongeBob either by using a pronoun or his name every time they converse, Sandy and Patrick have both called him "SquarePants" at least once ("That's for yesterday, SquarePants!" and "You can run, but you can't hide, SquarePants!", respectively) and Mr. Krabs has called him Mr. SquarePants and SpongeBoy (Me Bob).

Name and classification

Although his name is Squidward, he is actually an octopus, although an atypical one. This was stated in a 20 minute "behind the scenes" feature of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie DVD with creator Stephen Hillenburg and a few voice actors. The following was quoted by Squidward's voice actor, Rodger Bumpass:
"I am Rodger Bumpass, and I play Squidward J. Tentacles. He's more of an adult, tries to be at least. He's an octopus, but they call him Squidward. I never understood. I guess Octoward just never worked for a name though."

Also, in another feature on the DVD, entitled "The Case of the SpongeBob," Stephen Hillenburg quotes the following:

"This is Squidward the octopus. [...] It was easier for animation to draw him with six legs instead of eight."

Squidward's name is a portmanteau of the word 'squid' and the name 'Edward' (Squilliam bears a similar combination of 'squid' and the name 'William').

Animation

Squidward's animation style has changed throughout the series. In the episode "Squid's Day Off", Squidward mentions his bluish glow. This was an obvious in-joke, about Squidward's random color changes. In the very first episodes, Squidward actually does have a blueish glow, and almost looks blue in a few of them. In Season 4 episodes, he is completely green. Squidward's color is affected by the water around him, for when SpongeBob accidentally sucked all the water in the ocean into his reefblower, Squidward appeared purple. This could mean that Squidward is actually colored purple (which may in turn mean he is in fact an octopus, not a squid) but just looks different underwater. In the episode Squid's Day Off, when he goes insane, he appeared turquoise, and his eyes were flatter. When he was in the bathtub, underwater, he was an octopus.

Even though Squidward has tentacles, it is revealed in the episode "Once Bitten" that he has both fingers and toes. However, this could just be a sight gag.

In popular culture

A cameo of Squidward in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

Squidward makes a cameo appearance in episode 12 of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann as a crew member of the Dai-Gunkai.[3]

Squidward

Squidward Tentacles was born on October13, 1986.Template:Fact He is annoyingly pretentious in his pursuit of the arts, unable to spot raw talent and creativity, even belittling it. He lauds "cultivated taste" and accepted standards. All his artwork, from sculptures to paintings, depicts himself in a way, even over-painting done works with his own face. He has tried several things to reach the fame he desires: hosting a talent show, starting his own astrology spin-off, forming a band, and so on, yet he can't seem to get much of a following. He considers himself the greatest and most unrecognized clarinet player of all time, though most undersea life that hear him play will argue that he is a mediocre clarinet player, and his clarinet playing often gets him into trouble. He also owns a set of bagpipes. It is also revealed in the episode "Krabs a la Mode" that Squidward is in a book club, and is "always going on about" it.

Squidward's three main goals in life are to gain fame, gain fortune and regain hair. This is shown in the episode Artist Unknown.
In "The Original Fry Cook", it is revealed that Squidward actually had beautiful, flowing, blonde hair and he was only working part time at the Krusty Krab till he could become a professional clarinet player. Then Jim, the original fry cook at the Krusty Krab (hence the episode's name), left the Krusty Krab and "took all the class with him," upon which Squidward's hair then falls out, and the Krusty Krab turns (from a five-star rated restaurant) into how it is now. Also in the episode Frankendoodle, SpongeBob and Patrick draw Squidward some hair, which he instantly loves and goes to show it to everyone in Bikini Bottom, until SpongeBob and Patrick ruin it and the hair flies away.

Squidward views SpongeBob and Patrick as complete annoyances. SpongeBob and Patrick always encourage Squidward to participate in their games, but this only annoys him. In particular, Patrick and SpongeBob often ask him to go jellyfishing with them. One time while he was trying to avoid Patrick and SpongeBob, he froze himself in the Krusty Krab's freezer and landed in the future, then went to the past. While in the past, he inadvertently invented jellyfishing.

In the episode "Dunces and Dragons" when Spongebob and Patrick are transported to a medieval-age Bikini Bottom, they get thrown in jail for witchcraft and falling out of the sky. There they meet "Squidly", the king's royal fool and Squidward's ancestor, who is also imprisoned in their cell. He, like his descendent, plays the clarinet, but he squeaks a note and yells in anger, "If I may never learn to play this instrument, may my great great great great great great great great grandson be cursed tenfold!", perhaps being an omen of Squidward's deficient clarinet skills in the present time.

His rival is Squilliam Fancyson, from high-school band class, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Squidward, but wears a smoking jacket and has a unibrow. He is living Squidward's dream and succeeded in everything Squidward failed in. He is a wealthy six-legged octopus, usually with many admirers following his presence. He constantly shows up to make fun of Squidward, however Squidward makes a jerk out of Squilliam when his ragtag band plays for the Bubble Bowl and turns out to be much better than he ever expected. At this sight, Squilliam has a heart attack and is taken to the hospital to recover.

Despite his cynical views toward life, Squidward, deep down inside, really likes Spongebob and Patrick and often relies on them for help in desperate situations. He worries and feels guilty (sometimes to the point of tears) when they are in danger.

Squidward has a gambling problem, or more generally, a complusive personality. This is exibited best in the episode Skill Crane, where Squidward looses his entire paycheck, as well as the deed to his home, in an electronic game of chance.

Squidward lives in a house resembling an Easter Island head, placed between SpongeBob and Patrick's houses at 122 Conch Street. It has been personified several times, such as in the episode The Secret Box, where it seems to be listening to SpongeBob and Patrick's conversation. Despite Squidward's wish for peace and quiet, his two neighbors, SpongeBob and Patrick, make it nearly impossible, due to their high level of childish immaturity and silliness. If Squidward had the choice, he would move. He did in "Squidville", but ultimately decided that he had moved somewhere even worse. Similarly in "Opposite Day", Squidward tried to move but SpongeBob had scared away the Real Estate agent and Squidward had to stay.

His alter ego is Captain Magma in the International Justice League of Super Acquaintances.

Residence

Squidward's House.

Squidward lives in a house resembling an Easter Islandmoai, placed between SpongeBob and Patrick's houses at 122 Conch Street. It has been personified several times, such as in the episode The Secret Box, where it seems to be peeking at SpongeBob and Patrick's talk. Despite Squidward's wish for peace and quiet, his two neighbors, SpongeBob and Patrick, make it nearly impossible, due to their high level of childish immaturity and silliness. If Squidward had the choice, he would move. He did in "Squidville", but ultimately decided that he had moved somewhere even worse. Similarly in "Opposite Day", Squidward tried to move but SpongeBob had scared away the Real Estate agent and Squidward had to stay. Squidward does not live alone; Snellie, his snail from The Great Snail Race, is in residence with him.

Leisure

An avid patron of the arts, Squidward has a strong affection for interpretive dance, sculpture, painting, and playing the clarinet, but seems to have almost no talent for any of them whatsoever, although he does play the clarinet beautifully at the end of the Christmas special, and at the end of the Bubblestand episode. He has often tried to impress the public with his artistic exhibitions, but is always either unrecognized, mocked by his audience, or upstaged by SpongeBob. Squidward always wants to be the center of attention but rarely ever is. Strangely, in Best Day Ever he had a concert where he played beautifully and received thunderous applause from the audience. Spongebob was on the VIP list for it.

All his artwork, from sculptures to paintings, depicts himself in a way, even over-painting done works with his own face.

He has tried several things to reach the fame he desires: hosting a talent show, starting his own astrology spin-off, forming a band, and so on, yet he can't seem to get much of a following. Mr. Krabs and Patrick also seem to like him, though it may be argued that Mr. Krabs only likes Squidward because of his allegiance with the Krusty Krab. Squidward considers himself the greatest and most unrecognized clarinet player of all time, though most undersea life that hear him play will argue that he is a mediocre clarinet player, and his clarinet playing often gets him into trouble (or injured in a comic and brutal fashion, such as Spongebob launching an airborne marshmallow into his throat in an attempt to get him to stop playing). SpongeBob has told Squidward he doesn't play the clarinet well. It is amusing to note that Squidward once said that anyone can be a bigshot in a hick-town like Bikini Bottom, but he can never make a name for himself.

Annoyance

Squidward finds SpongeBob and Patrick are complete annoyances. He tends to let everyone annoy him, especially those who want to be his friend, although at many times his impatience of the loud and overbearing SpongeBob is quite justified. Often, Squidward infers Spongebob's simple-minded comments to be challenges. Proceeding this, he often goes out of his way to prove Spongebob he win the "challenge", often taking the whole thing entirely too seriously. His best friend is his clarinet, whose name is Clary (revealed in I Was a Teenage Gary). One of Squidward's greatest dreams and desires is to either have hair or to buy a wig. He seems to think he would look good with hair. Aside from his musical "talents", he enjoys painting several pictures of himself and hanging them up around his house. There are new paintings in his house in almost every episode, constantly changing and almost never the same.

In the episode Artist Unknown, Spongebob signs up for Squidward's art class and proves to be a better artist than Squidward. Eventually, Spongebob creates an amazing statue that is beyond Squidward's capabilities as an artist. However, Squidward degrades Spongebob's art and claims it is missing a very important element (a large nose similar to Squidward's).

In the episode "Squid's Day Off", Squidward assigns SpongeBob to man the cash register when Mr. Krabs is at the hospital getting his arms reattached. Meanwhile, Squidward leaves the Krusty Krab for a day of relaxation, but he foolishly had SpongeBob convinced that he was doing "very important boss-like errands."

SpongeBob and Patrick always encourage Squidward to participate in their games, but this only annoys him. In particular, Patrick and SpongeBob often ask him to go jellyfishing with them. One time while he was trying to avoid Patrick and SpongeBob, he froze in the Krusty Krab's freezer and landed in the future, then went to the past. While in the past, he inadvertently invented jellyfishing, which was supposed to be SpongeBob who invented it.

While seemingly the eternal pessimist, he occasionally tries to be like SpongeBob (often with hopes that doing so will stop SpongeBob from bugging him), but does not ever get the hang of it. In one episode, however he finds himself putting a piece of paper on his nose and dancing a jig in insanity. When SpongeBob isn't looking, Squidward will start to act more like SpongeBob from time to time, especially in the earlier episodes like "Bubblestand" and "The Paper". Squidward's voice reveals a lot about his personality and attitude, much like SpongeBob's voice. In one episode, "Selling Out", he is forced to keep a smile glued to his face by the manager of Krabby O' Mondays which creates an interesting effect, as Squidward hardly ever smiles while showing his teeth.

However, it is often alluded that Squidward actually likes SpongeBob deep down, and almost looks upon him as the son he never had. An example of this is in Squidville, where Squidward moves away from SpongeBob to an exclusive octopus retreat, but realised that he really missed SpongeBob.

Tentacle Acres

In one episode, he sees an ad on TV about a town called Tentacle Acres, also known as Squidville, where many octopuses live in Easter Island heads just like him. He decides to move there, and for a while life is spectacular, as he finds a large community of like-minded octopuses into which he fits perfectly. Eventually, though, he starts to miss SpongeBob's reef blower games and the city of Bikini Bottom. In Tentacle Acres, daily life is all one big routine that Squidward tires of after a week or so. He begins to wreak havoc throughout the overly structured civilization of Tentacle Acres with a reef blower. Angry citizens corner him in an alleyway and demand that he leave. He obeyed their wishes, except he did so by launching himself into the open water above him via reef blower, screaming, "Woohoo! FREEDOM!".

Family

Squog

Many generations

Squidley

Nine Generations

Mr. Tentacles

Mrs. Tentacles

Squidward Tentacles

Cultural References

Squidward looks and sounds similar to actor Ned Sparks (minus the cigar). Ironically Sparks was once caricatured as an underwater creature in a 1939 cartoon by Tex Avery.

Squidward's vocal inflection is also very similar to famed Rat Packer Sammy Davis Jr.

Residence

Squidward's House.

Squidward lives in a house resembling an Easter Islandmoai, placed between SpongeBob and Patrick's houses at 122 Conch Street. It has been personified several times. Despite Squidward's wish for peace and quiet, his two neighbors, SpongeBob and Patrick, make it nearly impossible, due to their high level of childish immaturity and silliness. If Squidward had the choice, he would move. He did in "Squidville", but ultimately decided that he had moved somewhere even worse. Similarly in "Opposite Day", Squidward tried to move but SpongeBob had scared away the Real Estate agent and Squidward had to stay.

Occupation

Squidward Tentacles works as the cashier at the Krusty Krab restaurant, along with his co-worker, SpongeBob. Generally, he despises his job and loves the thought of getting fired, as he revealed in As Seen on TV when he told SpongeBob to keep the customers waiting, though he only attempts to quit in one episode. He wouldn't work there if he didn't need the money. He doesn't take his work very seriously, being the exact opposite of SpongeBob. In "Just One Bite", it was revealed that Squidward had never eaten a Krabby Patty. He insists that they are disgusting, but after trying a bite of one, he falls in love with it. He also was the manager of the Krusty Krab 2 for six days in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.

Leisure

Squidward in the picture.

An avid patron of the arts, Squidward has a strong affection for interpretive dance, sculpture, painting, and playing the clarinet, but seems to have almost no talent for any of them whatsoever, although he does play the clarinet beautifully at the end of the Christmas special, and at the end of the "Bubblestand episode. He has often tried to impress the public with his artistic exhibitions, but is always either unrecognized, mocked by his audience, or upstaged by SpongeBob. Squidward always wants to be the center of attention but rarely ever is.

All his artwork, from sculptures to paintings, depicts himself in a way, even over-painting done works with his own face.

He has tried several things to reach the fame he desires: hosting a talent show, starting his own astrology spin-off, forming a band, and so on, yet he can't seem to get much of a following. Mr. Krabs and Patrick also seem to like him, though it may be argued that Mr. Krabs only likes Squidward because of his allegiance with the Krusty Krab. Squidward considers himself the greatest and most unrecognized clarinet player of all time, though most undersea life that hear him play will argue that he is a mediocre clarinet player, and his clarinet playing often gets him into trouble (or injured in a comic and brutal fashion, such as Spongebob launching an airborne marshmallow into his throat in an attempt to get him to stop playing). SpongeBob has told Squidward he doesn't play the clarinet well. It is amusing to note that Squidward once said that anyone can be a bigshot in a hick-town like Bikini Bottom, but he can never make a name for himself. It is sort of ironic how the person in the town who probably tries most to make a name for himself can't, even though it doesn't seem too hard.

Annoyance

Squidward finds SpongeBob a complete annoyance. He tends to let everyone annoy him, especially those who want to be his friend, although at many times his impatience of the loud and overbearing SpongeBob is quite justified. Often, Squidward infers Spongebob's simple-minded comments to be challenges. Proceeding this, he often goes out of his way to prove Spongebob he win the "challenge", often taking the whole thing entirely too seriously. His best friend is his clarinet, whose name is Clary (revealed in I Was a Teenage Gary). One of Squidward's greatest dreams and desires is to either have hair or to buy a wig. He seems to think he would look good with hair. Aside from his musical "talents", he enjoys painting several pictures of himself and hanging them up around his house. There are new paintings in his house in almost every episode, constantly changing and almost never the same. In the episode "Squid's Day Off", Squidward assigns SpongeBob to man the cash register when Mr. Krabs is at the hospital getting his arms reattached. Meanwhile, Squidward leaves the Krusty Krab for a day of relaxation, but he foolishly had SpongeBob convinced that he was doing "very important boss-like errands."

SpongeBob and Patrick always encourage Squidward to participate in their games, but this only annoys him. In particular, Patrick and SpongeBob often ask him to go jellyfishing with them. One time while he was trying to avoid Patrick and SpongeBob, he froze in the Krusty Krab's freezer and landed in the future, then went to the past. While in the past, he inadvertently invented jellyfishing, which was supposed to be SpongeBob who invented it.

While seemingly the eternal pessimist, he occasionally tries to be like SpongeBob (often with hopes that doing so will stop SpongeBob from bugging him), but does not ever get the hang of it. In one episode, however he finds himself putting a piece of paper on his nose and dancing a jig in insanity. When SpongeBob isn't looking, Squidward will start to act more like SpongeBob from time to time, especially in the earlier episodes like "Bubblestand" and "The Paper". Squidward's voice reveals a lot about his personality and attitude, much like SpongeBob's voice. In one episode, "Selling Out", he is forced to keep a smile glued to his face by the manager of Krabby O' Mondays which creates an interesting effect, as Squidward hardly ever smiles while showing his teeth.

Deep inside Squidward's chest of things he likes, it appears he actually likes SpongeBob! He would feel bored and sad if SpongeBob isn't there (see the episode Squidville for clearance of this.) Still, he doesn't like Patrick so much.

Tentacle Acres

In one episode, he sees an ad on TV about a town called Tentacle Acres, also known as Squidville, where many octopuses live in Easter Island heads just like him. He decides to move there, and for a while life is spectacular, as he finds a large community of like-minded octopuses into which he fits perfectly. Eventually, though, he starts to miss SpongeBob's reef blower games and the city of Bikini Bottom. In Tentacle Acres, daily life is all one big routine that Squidward tires of after a week or so. He begins to wreak havoc throughout the overly structured civilization of Tentacle Acres with a reef blower. Angry citizens corner him in an alleyway and demand that he leave. He obeyed their wishes, except he did so by launching himself into the open water above him via reef blower, screaming, "Woohoo! FREEDOM!".

Family

Squog

Many generations

Squidley

Nine Generations

Mr. Tentacles

Mrs. Tentacles

Squidward Tentacles

Rivalry

His rival is Squilliam Fancyson, from high school band class, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Squidward, but wears a robe and has a unibrow. He is living Squidward's dream (with a private island, a private heliport, a private lake, a private boat, a private mansion and even a private hot-air balloon/casino) and succeeded in everything Squidward failed in. He is a wealthy six-legged squid (or octopus, like Squidward is said to be at the beginning of this article), usually with many admirers following his presence. He constantly shows up to make fun of Squidward, however Squidward makes a jerk out of Squilliam when his ragtag band plays for the Bubble Bowl and turns out to be much better than he ever expected. At this sight, Squilliam has a heart attack and is taken to the hospital to recover.

Squilliam unintentionally gets back at Squidward in the episode "Squilliam Returns" which he is featured, when Squid's plan to turn the Krusty Krab into a five star restaurant blows up in his face when SpongeBob (who, on Squidward's request, emptied his mind of everything "except fine dining and breathing") forgot his name and subsequently everything else, in addition to Mr. Krabs's "appetizer" coming to life.

Animation

Squidward's animation style has changed throughout the series. In the episode "Squid's Day Off", Squidward mentions his bluish glow. This was an obvious in-joke, about Squidward's random color changes. In the very first episodes, Squidward actually does have a blueish glow, and almost looks blue in a few of them. In Season 4 episodes, he is completely green.

Cultural References

Squidward looks and sounds similar to actor Ned Sparks (minus the cigar). Ironically Sparks was once caricatured as an underwater creature in a 1939 cartoon by Tex Avery.

Squidward's vocal inflection is also very similar to famed Rat Packer Sammy Davis Jr.

Name and classification

Although his name is Squidward, he is actually an octopus. This was stated in a 20 minute "behind the scenes" feature of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie DVD with creator Stephen Hillenburg and a few voice actors. The following was quoted by Squidward's voice actor, Rodger Bumpass:

"I am Rodger Bampass, and I play Squidward J. Tentacles. He's more of an adult, tries to be at least. He's an octopus, but they call him Squidward. I never understood. I guess Octoward just never worked for a name though."

Also, in another feature on the DVD, entitled "The Case of the SpongeBob," Stephen Hillenburg quotes the following:

"This is Squidward the octopus." Later in the feature, he quotes, "It was easier for animation to draw him with six legs instead of eight."

Squidward's name is a combination of the word 'squid' and the name 'Edward' (Squilliam bears a similar combination of 'squid' and the name 'William').

Footnotes

Character

Squidward's character is a complex bundle of adult failings and successes, and, like the show, presents a rich social commentary. While his failings are of his own making, he is also a victim of modern society.

He is annoyingly pretentious in his pursuit of the arts, unable to spot raw talent and creativity, even belittling it. He lauds "cultivated taste" and accepted standards. In the episode "Artist Unknown", he insists that his pupil SpongeBob "show his method", even when it's painfully clear that SpongeBob is creating works of artistic genius. In "Bubblestand", he belittles SpongeBob's brilliant bubble-blowing. Such episodes can be taken as a punch by the cartoonists at their pretentious but failed art-school classmates who, instead of being recognized masters, must now work at low, demeaning jobs.

In certain ways, Squidward's life is portrayed as a failure. In "One Krab's Trash", he visits a cemetery to lay flowers at a headstone that reads, "Here Lies Squidward's Hopes and Dreams." Yet he has not sunk into despondency: he is tireless in his pursuit of music, his painting, his sculpture, oblivious to his lack of talent. (Season 4 implies that it's because his Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather Squidley could not play the clarinet right, and cursed Squidward ten-fold, as seen in "Dunces and Dragons".

Outwardly, he in fact shows signs of modest success: he lives in a nice, well-tended house, with no signs of slothfulness, and finds plenty of time to lead an active, involved life. Not conscious of his failings, he acknowledges them subconsciously by his outsized sarcasm. All of his most famous and most quotable lines are sarcastic.

He is well-educated, knows his history, and has a strong anti-capitalist bent. At work, he is not only careless, sloppy and lazy, but even occasionally engages in Marxist, labor-party sloganeering. In the episode "Squid on Strike", he organizes a worker's strike at the Krusty Krab, replete with talk of "the proletariat", working-class oppression, protest techniques and organization. He even incites labor unrest, resulting in the destruction of the Krusty Krab.

In the end, Squidward finds a way of redeeming himself. He has various endearing traits, and, despite himself, often manages to keep an open mind. In the episode "Squidville", he moves to a town filled with his own peers, other octopuses who share his tastes and outlook on life. Here, he is forced to face how boring and oppressive his desired lifestyle really is, and he is able to ultimately break free of its bonds with a bit of inspired silliness.

Even though Squidward has tentacles, it is revealed in the episode "Once Bitten" that he has both fingers and toes. However, this could just be a sight gag.

Residence

Squidward's House.

Squidward lives in a house resembling an Easter Islandmoai, placed between SpongeBob and Patrick's houses at 122 Conch Street. Despite Squidward's wish for peace and quiet, his two neighbors, SpongeBob and Patrick, make it nearly impossible, due to their high level of childish immaturity and silliness. If Squidward had the choice, he would move. He did in "Squidville", but ultimately decided that he had moved somewhere even worse. Simalirly in "Opposite Day", Squidward tried to move but Spongebob had scared away the Real Estate agent and Squidward had to stay.

Occupation

Squidward Tentacles works as the cashier at the Krusty Krab restaurant, along with his co-worker, SpongeBob. Generally, he despises his job and loves the thought of getting fired, as he revealed in As Seen on TV when he told SpongeBob to keep the customers waiting, though he only attempts to quit in one episode. He wouldn't work there if he didn't need the money. He doesn't take his work very seriously, being the exact opposite of SpongeBob. In "Just One Bite", it was revealed that Squidward had never eaten a Krabby Patty. He insists that they are disgusting, but after trying a bite of one, he falls in love with it. He also was the manager of the Krusty Krab 2 for six days in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.

Leisure

File:Squidward in SB-129.jpgAn avid patron of the arts, Squidward has a strong affection for interpretive dance, sculpture, painting, and playing the clarinet, but seems to have almost no talent for any of them whatsoever, although he does play the clarinet beautifully at the end of the Christmas special. He has often tried to impress the public with his artistic exhibitions, but is always either unrecognized, mocked by his audience, or upstaged by SpongeBob. Squidward always wants to be the center of attention but rarely ever is.

All his artwork, from sculptures to paintings, depicts himself in a way, even over-painting done works with his own face.

He has tried several things to reach the fame he desires: hosting a talent show, starting his own astrology spin-off, forming a band, and so on, yet he can't seem to get much of a following. Mr. Krabs and Patrick also seem to like him, though it may be argued that Mr. Krabs only likes Squidward because of his allegiance with the Krusty Krab. Squidward considers himself the greatest and most unrecognized clarinet player of all time, though most undersea life that hear him play will argue that he is a mediocre clarinet player, and his clarinet playing often gets him into trouble (or injured in a comic and brutal fashion, such as Spongebob launching an airborne marshmallow into his throat in an attempt to get him to stop playing). SpongeBob has told Squidward he doesn't play the clarinet well. It is amusing to note that Squidward once said that anyone can be a bigshot in a hick-town like Bikini Bottom, but he can never make a name for himself. It is sort of ironic how the person in the town who probably tries most to make a name for himself can't, even though it doesn't seem too hard.

Annoyance

Squidward finds SpongeBob a complete annoyance. He tends to let everyone annoy him, especially those who want to be his friend, although at many times his impatience of the loud and overbearing SpongeBob is quite justified. Often, Squidward infers Spongebob's simple-minded comments to be challenges. Proceeding this, he often goes out of his way to prove Spongebob he win the "challenge", often taking the whole thing entirely too seriously. His best friend is his clarinet, whose name is Clari (revealed in I Was a Teenage Gary). One of Squidward's greatest dreams and desires is to either have hair or to buy a wig. He seems to think he would look good with hair. Aside from his musical "talents", he enjoys painting several pictures of himself and hanging them up around his house. There are new paintings in his house in almost every episode, constantly changing and almost never the same. In the episode "Squid's Day Off", Squidward assigns SpongeBob to man the cash register when Mr. Krabs is at the doctor's office getting his arms reattached. Meanwhile, Squidward leaves the Krusty Krab for a day of relaxation, but he foolishly had SpongeBob convinced that he was doing "very important boss-like errands."

SpongeBob and Patrick always encourage Squidward to participate in their games, but this only annoys him. In particular, Patrick and SpongeBob often ask him to go jellyfishing with them. One time while he was trying to avoid Patrick and SpongeBob, he froze in the Krusty Krab's freezer and landed in the future, then went to the past. While in the past, he inadvertently invented jellyfishing.

While seemingly the eternal pessimist, he occasionally tries to be like SpongeBob (often with hopes that doing so will stop SpongeBob from bugging him), but does not ever get the hang of it. In one episode, however he finds himself putting a piece of paper on his nose and dancing a jig in insanity. When SpongeBob isn't looking, Squidward will start to act more like SpongeBob from time to time, especially in the earlier episodes like "Bubblestand" and "The Paper". Squidward's voice reveals a lot about his personality and attitude, much like SpongeBob's voice. In one episode, "Selling Out", he is forced to keep a smile glued to his face by the manager of Krabby O' Mondays which creates an interesting effect, as Squidward hardly ever smiles while showing his teeth.

Tentacle Acres

In one episode, he sees an ad on TV about a town called Tentacle Acres, also known as Squidville, where many octopuses live in Easter Island heads just like him. He decides to move there, and for a while life is spectacular, as he finds a large community of like-minded octopuses into which he fits perfectly. Eventually, though, he starts to miss SpongeBob's reef blower games and the city of Bikini Bottom. In Tentacle Acres, daily life is all one big routine that Squidward tires of after a week or so. He begins to wreak havoc throughout the overly structured civilization of Tentacle Acres with a reef blower. Angry citizens corner him in an alleyway and demand that he leave. He obeyed their wishes, except he did so by launching himself into the open water above him via reef blower, screaming, "Woohoo! FREEDOM!".

Family

Squog

Many generations

Squidley

Nine Generations

Mr. Tentacles

Mrs. Tentacles

Squidward Tentacles

Rivalry

His rival is Squilliam Fancyson, from high school band class, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Squidward, but wears a robe and has a unibrow. He is living Squidward's dream (with a private island, a private heliport, a private lake, a private boat, a private mansion and even a private hot-air balloon/casino) and succeeded in everything Squidward failed in. He is a wealthy six-legged squid (or octopus, like Squidward is said to be at the beginning of this article), usually with many admirers following his presence. He constantly shows up to make fun of Squidward, however Squidward makes a jerk out of Squilliam when his ragtag band plays for the Bubble Bowl and turns out to be much better than he ever expected. At this sight, Squilliam has a heart attack and is taken to the hospital to recover.

Squilliam unintentionally gets back at Squidward in the episode "Squilliam Returns" which he is featured, when Squid's plan to turn the Krusty Krab into a five star restaurant blows up in his face when SpongeBob (who, on Squidward's request, emptied his mind of everything "except fine dining and breathing") forgot his name and subsequently everything else, in addition to Mr. Krabs's "appetizer" coming to life.

Animation

Squidward's animation style has changed throughout the series. In the episode "Squid's Day Off", Squidward mentions his bluish glow. This was an obvious in-joke, about Squidward's random color changes. In the very first episodes, Squidward actually does have a blueish glow, and almost looks blue in a few of them. In Season 4 episodes, he is completely green.

Cultural References

Squidward looks and sounds similar to actor Ned Sparks (minus the cigar). Ironically Sparks was once caricatured as an underwater creature in a 1939 cartoon by Tex Avery.

Squidward hates jellyfishing. However, when he was trying to get Primitive SpongeBob and Primitive Patrick to stop zapping themselves in "SB-129", he inadvertently invented jellyfishing.

In the episode "Dying for Pie", SpongeBob made Squidward a sweater out of his own eyelashes, but it is shown to be made of his eyebrows. The hole for the head was measured with a watermelon, and Squidward still had a very difficult time getting it on.

Whenever Squidward laughs, his nose inflates and deflates.

Upon impact on the ground, Squidward's feet make a slight comedic splat sound.

Squidward is the last regular character to have called SpongeBob by his full name. He finally cracked in the episode "Funny Pants".

In "Wishing You Well", it is revealed that Squidward is claustrophobic. Squidward actually says that Patrick standing so close to him is making him claustrophobic.

Character

Squidward's character is a complex bundle of adult failings and successes, and, like the show, presents a rich social commentary. There is much to dislike about Squidward, and yet he is ultimately endearing. While his failings are of his own making, he is also a victim of modern society.

He is annoyingly pretentious in his pursuit of the arts, unable to spot raw talent and creativity, even belittling it. He lauds "cultivated taste" and accepted standards. In the episode "Artist Unknown", he insists that his pupil SpongeBob "show his method", even when it's painfully clear that SpongeBob is creating works of artistic genius. In "Bubblestand", he belittles SpongeBob's brilliant bubble-blowing. Such episodes can be taken as a punch by the cartoonists at their pretenious but failed art-school classmates who, instead of being recognized masters, must now work at low, demeaning jobs.

In certain ways, Squidward's life is portrayed as a failure. In "One Krab's Trash", he visits a cemetery to lay flowers at a headstone that reads, "Here Lies Squidward's Hopes and Dreams." Yet he has not sunk into despondency: he is tireless in his pursuit of music, his painting, his sculpture, oblivious to his lack of talent. This is because his Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather Squidley could not play the clarinet right, and cursed Squidward ten-fold, as seen in "Dunces and Dragons".

Outwardly, he in fact shows signs of modest success: he lives in a nice, well-tended house, with no signs of slothfulness, and finds plenty of time to lead an active, involved life. Not conscious of his failings, he acknowledges them subconsciously by his outsized sarcasm. All of his most famous and most quotable lines are sarcastic.

He is well-educated, knows his history, and has a strong anti-capitalist bent. At work, he is not only careless, sloppy and lazy, but even occasionally engages in Marxist, labor-party sloganeering. In the episode "Squid on Strike", he organizes a worker's strike at the Krusty Krab, replete with talk of "the proletariat", working-class oppression, protest techniques and organization. He even incites labor unrest, resulting in the destruction of the Krusty Krab.

In the end, Squidward finds a way of redeeming himself. He has various endearing traits, and, despite himself, often manages to keep an open mind. In the episode "Squidville", he moves to a town filled with his own peers, other squids who share his tastes and outlook on life. Here, he is forced to face how boring and oppressive his desired lifestyle really is, and he is able to ultimately break free of its bonds with a bit of inspired silliness.

He has somewhat of a sense of humor, but laughs only when others are not. Whenever he laughs, his nose inflates and deflates.
Upon impact on the ground, Squidward's feet make a slight comedic splat sound.
Squidward is a complex character, and offers much to learn from and can be quite repulsive if he is annoyed.
Even though Squidward has tentacles, it is revealed in the episode "Once Bitten" that he has both fingers and toes.

Sometimes Squidward plays the clarinet horribly; other times he can play fairly well.

Squidward is afraid of calling his mother.

Squidward, despite being a squid or octopus, has only 6 legs instead of 8

Residence

Squidward lives in a house resembling an Easter Islandmoai head, placed between SpongeBob and Patrick's houses at 122 Conch Street. Despite Squidward's wish for peace and quiet, his two neighbors, SpongeBob and Patrick, make it nearly impossible, due to their high level of childish immaturity and silliness. If Squidward had the choice, he would move. He did in "Squidville".

Occupation

Squidward Tentacles works as the cashier at the Krusty Krab restaurant, along with his co-worker, SpongeBob. Generally, he despises his job and loves the thought of getting fired, though he only attempts to quit in one episode. He doesn't take his work very seriously, being the exact opposite of SpongeBob. In "Just One Bite", it was revealed that Squidward had never eaten a Krabby Patty. He insists that they are disgusting, but after trying a bite of one, he falls in love with it. He also was the manager of the Krusty Krab 2 for six days in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.

Leisure

File:Squidward in SB-129.jpgAn avid patron of the arts, Squidward has a strong affection for interpretive dance, sculpture, painting, and playing the clarinet, but seems to have almost no talent for any of them whatsoever. (Although he does play the clarinet beautifully at the end of the Christmas special) He has often tried to impress the public with his artistic exhibitions, but is always either unrecognized, mocked by his audience, or upstaged by SpongeBob. Squidward always wants to be the center of attention but rarely ever is.

All his artwork, from sculptures to paintings, depicts himself in a way (never very original) , even over-painting done works with his own face.

He has tried several things to reach the fame he desires: hosting a talent show, starting his own astrology spin-off, forming a band, and so on, yet he can't seem to get much of a cult following (with the exception of SpongeBob, who really looks up to Squidward). Mr. Krabs and Patrick also seem to like him, though it may be argued that Mr. Krabs only likes Squidward because of his allegiance with the Krusty Krab. Squidward considers himself the greatest and most unrecognized clarinet player of all time, though most undersea life that hear him play will argue that he is 'a mediocre clarinet player', and his clarinet playing often gets him into trouble (or injured in a comic and brutal fashion).

Squidward's neighbors

SpongeBob and Patrick always encourage Squidward to participate in their games, but this only annoys him. In particular, Patrick and SpongeBob often ask him to go jellyfishing with them. One time while he was trying to avoid Patrick and SpongeBob, he froze in the Krusty Krab's freezer and landed in the future, then went to the past. While in the past, he inadvertently invented jellyfishing.

While seemingly the eternal pessimist, he occasionally tries to be like SpongeBob (often with hopes that doing so will stop SpongeBob from bugging him), but does not ever get the hang of it. In one episode, however he finds himself putting a piece of paper on his nose and dancing a jig in insanity. When SpongeBob isn't looking, Squidward will start to act more like SpongeBob from time to time, especially in the earlier episodes like "Bubblestand" and "The Paper". Squidward's voice reveals a lot about his personality and attitude, much like SpongeBob's voice. In one episode, "Selling Out", he is forced to keep a smile glued to his face by the manager of Krabby O' Mondays which creates an interesting effect, as Squidward hardly ever smiles while showing his teeth.

Annoyance

Squidward finds SpongeBob a complete annoyance. He tends to let everyone annoy him, especially those who want to be his friend, although at many times his fear of the loud and overbearing SpongeBob is quite justified. His best friend is his clarinet, whose name is Clary. One of Squidward's greatest dreams and desires is to either have hair or to buy a wig. He seems to think he would look good with hair. Aside from his musical "talents", he enjoys painting several pictures of himself and hanging them up around his house. There are new paintings in his house in almost every episode, constantly changing and almost never the same. In the episode "Squid's Day Off", Squidward assigns SpongeBob to man the cash register when Mr. Krabs is at the doctor's office receiving new crustacean pinchers. Meanwhile, Squidward leaves the Krusty Krab for a day of relaxation, but he foolishly had SpongeBob convinced that he was doing "very important boss-like errands."

Tentacle Acres

In one episode, he sees an ad on TV about a town called Tentacle Acres, also known as Squidville, where many octopi live in Easter Island heads just like him. He decides to move there, and for a while life is spectacular, as he finds a large community of like-minded octopuses into which he fits perfectly. Eventually, though, he starts to miss SpongeBob's reef blower games and the city of Bikini Bottom. In Tentacle Acres, daily life is all one big routine that Squidward tires of after a week or so. He begins to wreak havoc throughout the overly structured civilization of Tentacle Acres with a reef blower. Angry citizens corner him in an alleyway and demand that he leave. He obeyed their wishes, except he did so by launching himself into the open water above him via reef blower, screaming, "Woohoo! FREEDOM!".

Rivalry

His rival is Squilliam Fancyson, from high school band class, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Squidward, but wears a robe and has a unibrow. He is living Squidward's dream (with a private island, a private heliport, a private lake, a private boat, a private mansion and even a private hot-air balloon/casino) and succeeded in everything Squidward failed in. He is a wealthy six-legged squid (or octopus, like Squidward is said to be at the beginning of this article), usually with many admirers following his presence. He constantly shows up to make fun of Squidward, however Squidward makes a jerk out of Squilliam when his ragtag band plays for the Bubble Bowl and turns out to be much better than he ever expected. At this sight, Squilliam has a heart attack and is taken to the hospital to recover.

Squilliam unintentionally gets back at Squidward in the episode "Squilliam Returns" which he is featured, when Squid's plan to turn the Krusty Krab into a five star restaurant blows up in his face when SpongeBob (who, on Squidward's request, emptied his mind of everything "except fine dining and breathing") forgot his name and subsequently everything else, in addition to Mr. Krabs's "appetizer" coming to life.

Behind the scenes

Animation

Squidward's animation style has changed throughout the series. In the episode "Squid's Day Off", Squidward mentions his blueish glow. This was an obvious in-joke, about Squidward's random color changes. In the very first episodes, Squidward actually does have a blueish glow, and almost looks blue in a few of them. In Season 4 episodes, he is completely green.

In the episode Fools in April, Squidward admited to SpongeBob that he liked him, including his friends Sandy Cheeks, Patrick, and Mr. Krabs.

Squidward's name is a combination of the word 'squid' and the name 'Edward' (Squilliam bears a similar combination of 'squid' and the name 'William'). Apparently, it sounded better than "Octoward" (or "Pusward"), to be correct with his species.

Squidward once had his own astrology spin-off series that is still rarely shown on Nicktoons TV. It was called "Astrology With Squidward".

In three episodes, Squidward takes SpongeBob's place as fry cook of the Krusty Krab. Squidward usually burns the food, such as in "Pickles" and "Hooky", but cooks them fine in the episode "Bubble Buddy". He also competively cooked with SpongeBob to win title of Employee of the Month due to the fact that SpongeBob is better at him at many things. In the end, both of them lose. "Employee of the Month"

Squidward hates jellyfishing. However, when he was trying to get Primitive SpongeBob and Primitive Patrick to stop zapping themselves in "SB-129", he inadvertently invented jellyfishing.

In the episode "Dying for Pie", SpongeBob made Squidward a sweater out of his own eyelashes, but it is shown to be made of his eyebrows. The hole for the head was measured with a watermelon, and Squidward still had a very difficult time getting it on.

Squidward is compared to the likes of your normal Anti Hero for he shows disdain for SpongeBob yet he tends to assist him in his perils and/or adventures.

Whenever Squidward laughs, his nose inflates and deflates.

Upon impact on the ground, Squidward's feet make a slight comedic splat sound.

Squidward is the last regular character to have called SpongeBob by his full name. He finally cracked in the episode "Funny Pants".

Residence

Squidward lives in the Easter Islandmoai house between SpongeBob and Patrick. Despite his wish for peace and quiet, his two neighbors, SpongeBob and Patrick make it nearly impossible, due to their high level of childish immaturity and silliness.

Occupation

Squidward works as the cashier at the Krusty Krab restaurant, along with SpongeBob. Generally, he despises his job and loves the thought of getting fired, though he only attempts to quit in one episode. He doesn't take his work very seriously, being the exact opposite of SpongeBob. In "Just One Bite", Squidward was revealed to never have eaten a Krabby Patty. He insists that they are disgusting, but after trying a bite of one, he falls in love with it.

Squidward's Neighbors

SpongeBob and Patrick always encourage Squidward to participate in their games, but this only annoys him. In particular, SpongeBob and Patrick often ask him to go jellyfishing with them. While seemingly the eternal pessimist, he occasionally tries to be like SpongeBob (often with hopes that doing so will stop SpongeBob from bugging him), but does not ever get the hang of it. In one episode, however he finds himself putting a piece of paper on his nose and dancing a jig in insanity. When SpongeBob isn't looking, Squidward will start to act more like SpongeBob from time to time, especially in the earlier episodes like Bubblestand and The Paper. Squidward's voice reveals a lot about his persona and attitude, much like SpongeBob's voice. In one episode, Selling Out, he is forced to keep a smile glued to his face by the manager of Krabby O' Mondays which creates an interesting effect, as Squidward hardly ever smiles while showing his teeth.

Leisure

An avid patron of the arts, Squidward has a strong affection for interpretive dance, sculpture, painting, and playing the clarinet, but shows no significant talent for any of them. He has often tried to impress the public with his artistic exhibitions, but is always either unrecognized, mocked by his audience, or upstaged by SpongeBob. Squidward always wants to be the center of attention but rarely ever is.

He has tried several things to reach the fame he desires: hosting a talent show, starting his own astrology spin-off, forming a band, and so on, yet he can't seem to get much of a cult following (with the exception of SpongeBob, who really looks up to Squidward) Mr. Krabs and Patrick also seem to like him, though it may be argued that Mr. Krabs only likes Squidward because of his allegiance with the Krusty Krab. Squidward considers himself the greatest and most unrecognized clarinet player of all time, though most undersea life that hear him play will argue that he is horrible. His clarinet playing often gets him into trouble.

Annoyance

Squidward finds SpongeBob a complete annoyance. He tends to let everyone annoy him, especially those who want to be his friend, although at many times his fear of the loud and overbearing SpongeBob is quite justified. His best friend is his clarinet, whose name is Clary. One of Squidward's greatest dreams and desires is to either have hair or to buy a wig. He seems to think he would look good with hair. Aside from musical talents, he enjoys painting several pictures of himself and hanging them up around his house. There are new paintings in his house in almost every episode, constantly changing and almost never the same.

Tentacle Acres

In one episode, he sees an ad on TV about a town called Tentacle Acres, also known as Squidville, where many octopi live in Easter island heads just like him. He decides to move there, and for a while life is spectacular, as he finds a large community of like-minded octopi into which he fits perfectly. Eventually, though, he starts to miss SpongeBob's reef blower games and the city of Bikini Bottom. In Tentacle Acres, daily life is all one big routine that Squidward tires of after a week or so. He begins to wreak havoc throughout the overly structured civilization of Tentacle Acres with a reef blower. Angry citizens corner him in an alleyway and demand that he leave. Instead of obeying their wishes, he launches himself into the air via reef blower, screaming, "Woohoo! FREEDOM!".

Rivalry

His rival is Squilliam Fancyson, from Band Class, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Squidward, but wears a robe and has a unibrow. Squilliam is a wealthy six-legged octopus, usually with many admirers following his presence. He constantly shows up to make fun of Squidward, however Squidward makes a jerk out of Squilliam when his ragtag band plays for the Bubble Bowl and turns out to be much better than he ever expected.

Character

Squidward's character could be read as one who represents adults, while characters like SpongeBob and Patrick represent children, the target audience for the program. Squidward seems to have had high hopes for his life, and seems to hold himself to very adult standards (he keeps his home clean, cultivates a taste for "mature" things, craves peace and quiet), and the silliness of his neighbors annoys him greatly. His obsessions with greatness and failure seem to peg him as a grownup: in one episode, he's spotted trudging to a cemetery to lay flowers at a headstone that reads, "Here Lies Squidward's Hopes and Dreams." Secretly, however, he seems to yearn to "cut loose", but won't admit it. Although he is secretly scared of human resources (henchman), he also hates SpongeBob's crying more than his laughing, and in one episode laughed like SpongeBob because he broke his own laugh box.

Quotes

(Sarcastically) "Jellyfishing... I can't think of anything I'd want to more on my day off then go Jellyfishing with my two best friends SpongeBob and Uh... (Patrick: "Patrick") Right... But I can't!" (Jellyfishing)

"Whaaatever.."

"Spongebob, there's something I've been wanting to say to you since the first day we met. Goodbye."

(surrounded by angry customers) "Spongebob, if you don't feed these people, Mr. Krabs is going to have us both fired!" (thinks and then smiles) "On second thought, keep 'em waiting."

"SpongeBob, there are two problems with your theory. 1) I hate you and 2) How can that be me, when I'm standing right here!?! (The Graveyard Shift)

Trivia

Squidward once had his own astrology spin-off series that is still occasionally and (rarely) shown on Nicktoons TV.

Squidward first began working at the Krusty Krab in 1993.

In the episode "Squid's Day Off", Squidward mentions his blueish glow. This was an obvious in-joke, about Squidward's random color changes. In the very first episodes, Squidward actually does have a blueish glow, and almost looks blue in a few of them. In Season 4 episodes, he is completely green.

Character

Squidward's character is a complex bundle of adult failings and successes, and, like the show, presents a rich social commentary. There is much to dislike about Squidward, and yet he is ultimately endearing. While his failings are of his own making, he is also a victim of modern society.

He is annoyingly pretentious in his pursuit of the arts, unable to spot raw talent and creativity, even belittling it. He lauds "cultivated taste" and accepted standards. In the episode "Artist Unknown", he insists that his pupil SpongeBob "show his method", even when its painfully clear that SpongeBob is creating works of artistic genius. In "Bubblestand", he belittles SpongeBob's brilliant bubble-blowing. Such episodes can be taken as a punch by the cartoonists at their pretenious but failed art-school classmates who, instead of being recognized masters, must now work at low, demeaning jobs.

In certain ways, Squidward's life is portrayed as a failure. In "One Krabs Trash", he visits a cemetery to lay flowers at a headstone that reads, "Here Lies Squidward's Hopes and Dreams." Yet he has not sunk into despondancy: he is tireless in his pursuit of music, his painting, his sculpture, oblivious to his lack of talent.

Outwardly, he in fact shows signs of modest success: he lives in a nice, well-tended house, with no signs of slothfulness, and finds plenty of time to lead an active, involved life. Not conscious of his failings, he acknowledges them subconsciously by his outsized sarcasm. All of his most famous and most quotable lines are sarcastic.

He is well-educated, knows his history, and has a strong anti-capitalist bent. At work, he is not only careless, sloppy and lazy, but even occasionally engages in Marxist, labor-party sloganeering. In the episode "Squid on Strike", he organizes a worker's strike at the Krusty Krab, replete with talk of "the proletariat", working-class oppression, protest techniques and organization. He even incites labor unrest, resulting in the destruction of the Krusty Krab.

In the end, Squidward finds a way of redeeming himself. He has various endearing traits, and, despite himself, often manages to keep an open mind. In the episode "Squidville", he moves to a town filled with his own peers, other octopuses who share his tastes and outlook on life. Here, he is forced to face how boring and oppresive his desired lifestyle really is, and he is able to ultimately break free of its bonds with a bit of inspired silliness.

Squidward is a complex character, and offers much to learn from and can be quite repulsive if he is annoyed.

Residence

Squidward lives in a house resembling an Easter Islandmoai head, placed between SpongeBob and Patrick's houses at 122 Conch Street. Despite Squidward's wish for peace and quiet, his two neighbors, SpongeBob and Patrick, make it nearly impossible, due to their high level of childish immaturity and silliness.

Occupation

Squidward Tentacles works as the cashier at the Krusty Krab restaurant, along with his co-worker, SpongeBob. Generally, he despises his job and loves the thought of getting fired, though he only attempts to quit in one episode. He doesn't take his work very seriously, being the exact opposite of SpongeBob. In "Just One Bite", it was revealed that Squidward had never eaten a Krabby Patty. He insists that they are disgusting, but after trying a bite of one, he falls in love with it. He also was the manager of the Krusty Krab 2 for six days in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.

Leisure

File:Squidward in SB-129.jpgAn avid patron of the arts, Squidward has a strong affection for interpretive dance, sculpture, painting, and playing the clarinet, but shows no significant talent for any of them. All his artwork, from sculptures to paintings depict himself in a way (and never very original), even over-painting done works with his own face. He has often tried to impress the public with his artistic exhibitions, but is always either unrecognized, mocked by his audience, or upstaged by SpongeBob. Squidward always wants to be the center of attention but rarely ever is.

He has tried several things to reach the fame he desires: hosting a talent show, starting his own astrology spin-off, forming a band, and so on, yet he can't seem to get much of a cult following (with the exception of SpongeBob, who really looks up to Squidward). Mr. Krabs and Patrick also seem to like him, though it may be argued that Mr. Krabs only likes Squidward because of his allegiance with the Krusty Krab. Squidward considers himself the greatest and most unrecognized clarinet player of all time, though most undersea life that hear him play will argue that he is 'a mediocre clarinet player', and his clarinet playing often gets him into trouble.

Annoyance

Squidward finds SpongeBob a complete annoyance. He tends to let everyone annoy him, especially those who want to be his friend, although at many times his fear of the loud and overbearing SpongeBob is quite justified. His best friend is his clarinet, whose name is Clary. One of Squidward's greatest dreams and desires is to either have hair or to buy a wig. He seems to think he would look good with hair. Aside from his musical "talents", he enjoys painting several pictures of himself and hanging them up around his house. There are new paintings in his house in almost every episode, constantly changing and almost never the same. In the episode "Squid's Day Off", Squidward assigns SpongeBob to man the cash register when Mr. Krabs is at the doctor's office receiving new crustacean pinchers. Meanwhile, Squidward leaves the Krusty Krab for a day of relaxation, but he foolishly had SpongeBob convinced that he was doing "very important boss-like errands."

Tentacle Acres

In one episode, he sees an ad on TV about a town called Tentacle Acres, also known as Squidville, where many octopuses live in Easter Island heads just like him. He decides to move there, and for a while life is spectacular, as he finds a large community of like-minded octopuses into which he fits perfectly. Eventually, though, he starts to miss SpongeBob's reef blower games and the city of Bikini Bottom. In Tentacle Acres, daily life is all one big routine that Squidward tires of after a week or so. He begins to wreak havoc throughout the overly structured civilization of Tentacle Acres with a reef blower. Angry citizens corner him in an alleyway and demand that he leave. He obeyed their wishes, except he did so by launching himself into the open water above him via reef blower, screaming, "Woohoo! FREEDOM!".

Rivalry

His rival is Squilliam Fancyson, from high school band class, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Squidward, but wears a robe and has a unibrow. He is living Squidward's dream and succeeded in everything Squidward failed in. He is a wealthy six-legged octopus, usually with many admirers following his presence. He constantly shows up to make fun of Squidward, however Squidward makes a jerk out of Squilliam when his ragtag band plays for the Bubble Bowl and turns out to be much better than he ever expected.

Squilliam unintentionally gets back at Squidward in the episode "Squilliam Returns" which he is featured, when Squid's plan to turn the Krusty Krab into a five star restaurant blows up in his face when SpongeBob (who, on Squidward's request, emptied his mind of everything "except fine dining and breathing") forgot his name and subsequently everything else, in addition to Mr. Krabs' "appetizer" coming to life.